Bauang Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the range of swells directed at Bauang over a normal June. It is based on 3491 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Bauang. In this particular case the best grid node is 34 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These were forecast 43% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Bauang and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Bauang, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Bauang run for about 57% of the time.

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